Sunday Telegraph 50th anniversary: 50 years of sport

A newspaper’s reputation, writes Mark Reason, remains founded on
good reporting, which he found in abundance when he goes down memory lane,
from John Oaksey’s first-hand report from the ’63 Grand National to Rugby
Union’s World Cup final
.

The Noble Lord: popular jockey John Oaksey pictured in 1973Photo: GETTY IMAGES

By Mark Reason,

5:00PM GMT 05 Feb 2011

Looking back at the first edition of The Sunday Telegraph, it is tempting to see a sunlit empire peopled by invincible Corinthians who smoked 40 a day and then won the marathon in a few gasps over two hours. So much for nostalgia. At least the bit about cigarettes is almost true.

The first ever Sunday sports section ran over four pages and featured a huge advertisement for Piccadilly No 1 at 4s 2d for a pack of 20. In the small ads column there was advice on how to give up smoking.

Overleaf was 26-year-old David Miller’s first football report. It began: “The true botanist, it has been said, knows a tree as soon as he sees it. He learns to distinguish it from a vegetable by merely putting his ear to it. No such intuitive perception, however, has been needed these last two seasons to tell that Spurs were a rose among the English cabbages, but at White Hart Lane yesterday afternoon the rose wilted almost beyond recognition.” Flowery.

Fifty years ago, they say, sport was covered by real journalists, a far pavilion from the celebrity writers who began to emerge at the end of their sporting careers in the 1990s. Yet the first Sunday Telegraph featured articles by the cricketer M J K Smith, John Lawrence (the future Lord Oaksey) and athlete Chris Chataway, who had all competed at the very top of their sports. Lawrence was still active as a jockey and his piece on the 1963 Grand National was a classic. Shortly after dismounting, Lawrence wrote: “Three-quarters of a mile from home the dream of a lifetime seemed to be coming true before my eyes. 'Go on John, you’ll win’ – and the speaker as I passed him before the second last was Pat Buckley on Ayala. He thought it was true too.

“I saw Gerry Scott pick up his whip on Springbok, the favourite could do no more. We were past both him and Ayala, upsides in front with Hawa’s Song and the stands looming ahead like the shores of a promised land.

“It was a sight that has been with me day and night for months. And now, seen in reality, will never be forgotten. You can only just hear the crowd, a murmur from afar, and the thing I remember best is a chunk torn out of the last fence and thinking, whatever happens, I must steer clear of that.”

Today, it is hard to imagine a sportsman writing so vividly immediately after such a big event. Even the athletes who pen their own columns tend to be “ghosted” on match day. But in the words of Peter Mitchell, the current sports editor: “Oaksey would gallop for four miles, nip up Mount Kilamanjaro for a spot of exercise and then dictate a thousand words.”

But perhaps the biggest difference between now and the early years was in editorial emphasis. Back in 1961 “soccer” shared equal space with rugby and the Manchester United versus Aston Villa report did not make the southern editions. It was passed over in favour of Hendon versus Walthamstow and Bromley versus Pegasus, both of which received more column inches than the Chelsea match.

The new Sunday Telegraph was a newspaper of class distinctions. Hockey, the MCC and the Boat Race crews all featured in the first paper along with the results from lacrosse, real tennis and rackets.

EW Swanton headed his initial diary for the paper with a good luck message from the Aussie prime minister and signed off with a piece on Fijian football that ended: “I am told the natives wear boots nowadays. But they are still very friendly.”

The big events were covered with dignified reserve. England’s victory in the 1966 World Cup final just about made it on to the front page, but the coverage on the sports pages was a model of self-restraint. England’s victory shared the space with bowls and a piece about stuffing fishes.

Not all can be put down to editorial choice. Forty-five years ago, in the days of telephoned copy, laborious printing and union sabotage, deadlines were considerably more fraught. Because the final went into extra time, Miller did not have time to write his copy, but had to ad lib it over the phone. Under any circumstances it is a fine piece of journalism. On the biggest day in England’s sporting history he began: “They fetched him, three and a half years ago from Ipswich, a taciturn, shy, deeply reserved man, and quietly leading with his chin, as they say, he promised to win them the World Cup. There were those who laughed, and some were still laughing four weeks ago. Today, with a relentless inflexibility of will, with sterling courage, with efficiency that brought unbounded admiration, his team, England’s team, helped to keep that promise.”

In 2003, two-thirds of the front of the newspaper were given over to England’s victory at the rugby World Cup. “Wilkinson wins it” screamed the headline. The sports section carried five pages of coverage and four ghost-written celebrity views. What a contrast.

Back in the Sixties, many reporters were jingoistic. The patrician golf correspondent Leonard Crawley referred to “our men” four times in his report on the ’63 Ryder Cup. This seemed an anachronism until I looked at a front page from the 2008 Olympics which read: “We are guaranteed at least one gold today.”

The coverage of women’s sport has not changed as much as might be supposed. Billie Jean King made it on to the front page with her third Wimbledon victory in 1968, and Mary Rand and Ann Packer featured prominently at the 1964 Olympics, just as Rebecca Adlington took the headlines 40 years later.

The tone was a touch more chauvinistic in ’64. Lewis Yeomans wrote: “Never again will Mary Rand and Ann Packer stand on the winners’ rostrum. These British girls have brought a welcome touch of feminism to the Amazonian world of Olympic champions. Now they plan to retire to the backwater of domestic life in suburban England.”

Yet Yeomans was an acute reporter. Even 40 years ago in Tokyo he wrote about the “encroachment of the scientists” and “the interference of the politicians”. He questioned America’s success in the pool and wondered if sport “will mar the lives of the teenage mermaids helping the US dominate”.

No, the greatest changes over the years have been technological rather than moral. The advances in printing and computer technology graphically altered the look of the sports pages. In November 1986, sport appeared on The Sunday Telegraph’s back page for the first time. Botham was in his pomp, the sun was in the sky and England were on the verge of winning the Ashes in Australia.

Tony Lewis wrote: “Unhelmeted, hair tinted blond, slipping and sliding along the green edges of the mowed pitch in rubber-soled shoes – as ever, doing so much wrong, but a lot more right.”

With the advent of new technology The Sunday Telegraph launched a 12-page sports section in October 1993 as Frank Bruno lay on the canvas. A year later, the electronic Telegraph sent its first messages to the world, making bloggers of us all, and in 2008 the first full-colour section was produced with the front page showing Joe Cole rescuing England from the menace of Andorra.

There is so much to celebrate, and yet it is hard not to be wistful at times. My father was the rugby correspondent of the newspaper for many years before I became its golf correspondent.

At times I still miss how he would debunk his many scoops with wry humour. This is not his most famous piece by a long chalk, but it has a delicious flavour. My dad hated seeing petty officials wrong decent men.

Reason snr wrote: “Clive Norling is probably back home in Wales by now, wondering how he failed to be nominated for the final panel of eight officials from whom the referee will be chosen for the World Cup final.

“Well, I can tell him. He’s too fat. That was the verdict of the referees’ selection committee. Nothing that has happened in the World Cup so far has caused such gaping astonishment because it is widely accepted that he is the best referee in the world by a street.

“Admittedly Clive looks well nourished – as one of the best after-dinner speakers in the game he can hardly fail to be. Admittedly he is an unashamed showman. He was the first referee to bring in mini shorts.

“His shorts were so short that it seemed as if it must have been almost a physical impossibility for a man as big as he is to put them on without the aid of a shoe horn.

“Nothing seemed more appropriate, therefore, than for him to be chosen to referee Rugby Union’s first World Cup final. Sadly, the committee which has decided these matters does not seem qualified even to pass an opinion on the subject, never mind make a judgment.”

For all technology’s electronic streak into the future, a newspaper remains founded on good reporting. The Sunday Telegraph’s coverage of the tragedy of the Munich Olympics still startles.

Many fine reporters collaborated on the story, but not all could claim: “I was there.” Waking to the news of Israeli hostages, David Miller made his way to the athletes’ village and lay down to sunbathe a few yards from the perimeter fence. Each time the German guards walked past Miller rolled a few feet closer to the fence. Finally he slid under the barrier. He was now in the village and continued to sunbathe as if nothing had happened. After 15 minutes the guards were used to him. Miller stood up and ambled off into the heart of the story.

Good luck to The Sunday Telegraph after 50 years of top sports coverage – amble on.